An international team of legal advisers has been working with local prosecutors in Ukraine's recaptured city of Kherson in recent days as they began gathering evidence of alleged sexual crimes by Russian forces as part of a full-scale investigation.
The visit by a team from Global Rights Compliance, an international legal practice headquartered in The Hague, has not previously been reported.
The scale of the Ukrainian prosecution's task is daunting, with the number of alleged international crimes running into tens of thousands and as war in the east and south of the country makes already complex work more difficult and dangerous. Some residents who remained during the occupation have described being detained and tortured, repeating allegations made by Ukrainians across territory that has been reclaimed by local forces in recent months.
They joined Ukrainian prosecutors visiting hospitals, a local aid distribution centre and other sites to pursue lines of investigation and interview victims of alleged abuses, including sexual violence. "Everywhere where Russian soldiers were based they committed war crimes, they committed sexual violence and they tortured, they murdered," she said.
He added that more than half said they had been subjected to various forms of sexual violence. There are likely to be many more witnesses, he added.
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